Spike Lee's Oldboy Casts Nate Parker

With small roles in the Spike Lee-directed Red Hook Summer and the Spike Lee-produced Red Tails, Nate Parker has been emerging this year as a star to watch, but also apparently one of Spike Lee's favorites. Parker is now set to reunite with the director for a third time, taking a small role in Oldboy, the remake of the Korean revenge thriller that Lee is set to make this year.

If you remember the original movie, you know that the only major roles really belong to the main character (Josh Brolin), the man who imprisons him for 15 years for no apparent reason (Sharlto Copley), and the woman he meets when he escapes (Elizabeth Olsen) who helps him hunt down the kidnapper. According to Variety, Parker will be playing a role that must be new for the new version, a doctor who works with Olsen's character (she was an employee at a sushi restaurant in the original). Lee has acknowledged that his version of the story will be pretty different from the Korean original, and really, how can it not be-- Spike Lee is as individual a filmmaker as they come, and it's pretty much impossible to imagine him making just a copy of someone else's work, even if it's something as daring and unforgettable as Oldboy.

So though Parker, obviously, isn't playing one of the major roles, he may very well be very important to the story-- and since Lee clearly likes him, you can probably count on him getting a plum spot in the story. With Oldboy set for a 2013 release, we'll know for ourselves soon enough